Doctors and Strangers
by DragonSteel
Summary: Eleanor leaves Rapture with the Little Sisters, but what of the Big Sisters left behind, bereft of their charges as Rapture falls apart around them? Who's left to tell them to stop taking girls from the Surface?
1. Stairs

Summary: Eleanor leaves Rapture with the Little Sisters, but what of the Big Sisters left behind, bereft of their charges as Rapture falls apart around them? Who's left to tell them to stop taking girls from the Surface?

Warnings: Maybe spoilers for Bioshock 1&2, all the terrible things in the game (e.g, experimentation on children, lots of death and mutilation, child deaths, etc.)

I think the Big Sisters are such tragic and fascinating characters. Unfortunately the ones I've come across on ffnet have mostly been Mary Sues, which I think does them a huge disservice. After playing the game I always wondered if there were any Little Sisters or Big Sisters that had been left behind. So, this is the story of the remaining Big Sisters in their decaying Rapture.

I chose to do this from the first person POV of a Big Sister, in other words, a person who was taken away from any kind of normality and basically driven insane at a very young age (I know, I make things ridiculously hard on myself.) So parts of it might be a little confusing. I theorize that in order to make them see things the Doctor's hypnotized the Little Sisters, and this hypnotism fails when feeling strong emotion and as they age the hypnotism weakens and fades in and out so that their world and what they see is constantly changing (certainly enough to drive anyone insane).

Also, just remember that petals=blood and sleep sometimes= death and you should be able to understand what's going on.

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Ch.1 Stairs

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Swirling colors, black... blue… red- Movement! Stab! Petals, petals, red mist drifting, but we know where they go. Petals drift and Angels fall. There are not as many Angels as there once were. It cannot be because I am not a good girl, I always drink my Adam, I'm a good girl.

Whale song, echoing. Mr. Bubbles is here.

I'll tell you a secret, I've seen Mr. Bubbles put to sleep 4 times. One of the girls has seen him put to sleep 6! Sometimes I see Mr. Bubbles as an Angel and he has petals too. All good girls gather. Naughty girls are taken by Doctors and Strangers. But Mother says that Stranger-girls should be taken to her so that they can be Sisters.

Mother doesn't look like the Angels I've seen so she must not be beautiful. After all Angels are the most beautiful things next to Butterflies and Rapture. When we sleep I sometimes see my older Sister's faces and they are almost ugly too. They almost look like our Little Sisters, and they almost look like Angels. Papa Suchong told us that Little Sisters are ugly brats so we Big Sisters must be half beautiful and half ugly.

If we do not give them tanks and masks Stranger-girls sleep under water. Mother doesn't like it when the Stranger-girls sleep, but the Upside Down House where Mother lives is now full of water. Uncle Gilbert told us that our tanks only last for a short while and then we must fill them at a pumping station. If we do not do this we sleep as well, so we had to take the Stranger-girls away from the Upside Down House. We did not know what else to do, so now we take them to where we once lived, when Papa Suchong was awake. Sometimes the Stranger-girls go to sleep anyways, but they are not Angels and I cannot smell their Adam. Only naughty girls hide Adam. Sometimes we ask them why they hide it from us but they do not answer. We ask why they aren't our Sisters yet but they do not answer. They often cry. We once cried, but the Doctors and Strangers can hear it when you cry. Sometimes we forget that the girls aren't Stranger-strangers and we put them to sleep. Even though they aren't Angels they still have petals.

Sometimes I think that my Sisters are Strangers and then they have petals too. Sometimes I wake up and they are still asleep. All good girls gather. I hope that when I fall asleep that my Sisters will be good girls.

We do not often speak. Sometimes I forget how to, and the markings on the wall, which I once knew how to make, how to read, have slowly faded from my mind. Many things have faded. These hallways were once bright almost all the time, but now they flicker. The colors swirl between crimson and grey, white and brown, gold and steel. The only thing that doesn't seem to change is the water outside. Or rather, it changes, but it is still always beautiful, even when the Angels aren't. Sometimes I can't stand the swirling colors anymore and go out into the water. Many of my Sisters do this too, and some never return to us.

Sometimes it seems that the water wants to take all of us. There is always water pouring, rushing, pushing. Sometimes I know that it's a waterfall, sometimes I know that it's a fountain, and then I see that it is a leak, and that the water is pushing in. In some places there is no longer any inside or outside, just water. There are no longer any Strangers there, and the Angels dance in the water.

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Now I am in the place of many statues. I can't remember how I got here, but I can't remember many things. Here is a statue. I have seen many statues, sometimes I like to watch them change between my golden Daddy and a glistening white Stranger. Some of these Strangers even look like ballerinas! I once knew a little girl who wanted to be a ballerina. She went on the stage with her- her- I can no longer remember. My memories seem to change too. I'm not even sure what a ballerina is anymore, but I think it is someone beautiful. No, that's not right, Strangers aren't beautiful. Don't play with Strangers, you'll get caught, and Mr. Bubbles is asleep.

The statue has changed! No ballerinas right now. Maybe I can find one of the acrobats.

Moving through the room I had found myself in, I enter into the hall. This place does not change as much as some of the others. See? There's the red carpet! Sometimes it's darker than others, but the red carpet is still always here. And the stairs! The gilded ballroom stairs! More than once I have waited, watching them, waiting for them to disappear. So far they have stayed. Sometimes they are shinier and more beautiful and sometimes they are spotted and rusting, but they stay mostly the same. Most of the other stairs change between grey and gold and white and steel, and sometimes they just go away. I will be climbing and one of the steps will no longer be there. I know most of these stairs and we share the new ones that decide to change with each other. This also happens to the floor and walls. When I come to a new area I try and wait for it to change and see where the holes appear. Of course everything changes here and new holes always appear, so as I cross the floor I automatically avoid a lamp, an old hole I remember, and feel for the floor giving way beneath me. Reaching the lovely golden railing, and with half-remembered imaginings of princesses and balls and glass slippers, I descend.

No Prince waits for me at the bottom.


	2. Hunger

Warnings for this chapter: Mentions of cannibalism

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Ch.2 Hunger

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I seem to remember once eating food that did not come out of a can or a bag. But that's silly, where else would food come from?

The Strangers sometimes try and hide food, but they usually forget where they put it. Some of the oldest Sisters like to watch the Strangers and they dig out their hiding places. They say that soon all of the food will be gone. What a silly thing to say, food has always just appeared before, but everything does change, and I think I did used to get more to eat. What food we do find often makes us throw up and our stomachs hurt even more. Sometimes a Sister will get tired of being sick and hurting and stop eating altogether. They are very naughty girls and do not stay awake for very long afterwards.

The pictures of bottles and cans of food on the wall have slowly disappeared along with the real food. I can't always tell which is real, the pictures, or the cans. Sometimes I think I am eating chips, but then it turns out to just be flakes of paint or paper.

Once I found one of the large Strangers burning one of the smaller ones and he was saying that he would eat him. The Strangers must have even more trouble telling what's real than I do; I have never thought that a _Stranger_ looked like food.

…If only Adam would stay in my stomach, then I would be full all the time.

The Stranger –girls often complain about being hungry, but many of them have stomachs that are bloated and round, so how can they still be hungry?

I wish they would be quiet when they're awake, they bring the Strangers creeping with their crying.

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The other Sisters, the ones even older than me, frighten me sometimes. They do not always follow Mother's orders, and seem to remember better. Then I see the Sisters younger than me and I can see that I frighten them sometimes too. The very youngest Sisters, the ones that are still Little Sisters seem to have mostly gone to sleep or simply gone away. Very few are left and we try to protect them, but the oldest Sisters think that they will someday leave too, and then who will we protect?

The Oldest Sisters speak to us, especially when we are going to sleep, they say many things. They say that things change for a reason, and sometimes I can understand this. I can see Strangers or even me and my Sisters doing something that causes change, but other times, other times I think that this cannot be true, everything changes and no one knows why or how. The colors, they do not stay, the stairs, they are complete, and then they have holes, the floor, it creaks and breaks under our feet, and sometimes, sometimes, we go to sleep and we wake up, and sometimes we do not. No don't ask, don't ask why. Doctors and Mother do not like questions, and they know what's best for us.

The oldest Sisters also say that someday- someday… a day… I no longer remember what a day really is. The oldest Sisters, they sometimes speak of hours and days and weeks as if they remember them meaning something once. How long is a minute? Does it take a minute to gather Adam from an Angel? An hour? A day? I know that I have been a Sister for years, but I no longer really remember what that means.

…They say that someday we will have to leave, go to the Surface and stay there. The Surface! So bright, so many Strangers. I have seen them gathered in huge crowds, out in the light, away from the shadows that they should hide in when I scream. They do not look like Angels, they do not have Adam, some of them look like Mother or the Doctors before they turned into Angels. I seem to remember, long ago, when I had just finished my training (Mustn't look away from the glowing ball, isn't it pretty? Remember that Rapture and Angels are beautiful, and all good girls gather, naughty girls get taken away by Doctors and Strangers. Remember? Look at the glowing ball, isn't it pretty? Remember that Rapture and Angels are beautiful, and all good girls gather, naughty girls get taken away by Doctors and Strangers. Remember? Look at the glowing ball…) that most Strangers looked like that. In Rapture most of the Strangers look like Angels now, but only Angels have Adam. Like the Strangers, there aren't many of them anymore.


	3. Screaming

Ch.3 Screaming

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The Stranger-girls have all fallen asleep. As many as we bring for Mother they all lay down and do not get up. The older Sisters say there is not enough food and the food we do give them makes them sick.

And the Adam, it hides, it hides! How can we be good girls without Adam? The Doctors and the Strangers will come to take us! Where have all the Angels gone? We cannot be Good Girls if all the Angels have gone to Heaven.

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The Ballroom Stairs are gone.

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Now there is no sound but the water and the metal. The constant rushing, trickling, dripping, creaking, groaning, moaning. We scream just to hear something different. Always before there were Strangers crying, singing, creeping, screaming. Doctors muttering, whispering, screaming. Mr Bubbles singing, groaning, sighing, screaming. Little Sisters laughing, crying, screaming. I believe the older Sisters when they say that we are the only ones awake now.

Now only we and Rapture scream as the lights go out and the water takes its rightful place.


End file.
